Over the years, a variety of medical treatments have been developed to treat chronic skin problems, such as acne, sun damage, precancerous lesions, scars, pigmentation disorders, wrinkles, and the like. These can be classified as procedures and methods that either supplement or prevent the loss of nutrients needed for healthy skin, or that remove regions of damaged skin. The former category comprises a truly bewildering variety of skin creams, lotions and ointments that are generally available over-the-counter. These creams either act to prevent water loss from the skin, or to deliver nutrients into the dermal layers. Suitable examples of such creams can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,424,234 and 4,235,889. Also, medical creams and antibiotics are used to treat acne vulgaris, or other skin conditions, are known to those skilled in the art.
For the most part, only three methods are now in routine medical use for removing damaged skin. They all involve the application of particular chemicals. The first can be termed the trichloroacetic acid peel; the second, resorcinol or salcylic acid peel; and third, the chemical peel. All three are of limited use, because as they are generally restricted to fair skinned people, and can often cause severe complications.
The trichloroacetic acid peel involves the application of trichloroacetic acid to the damaged area, followed by a short reaction time to allow it to interact with the damaged skin. Several days later, the damaged area peels off. The limitation of this method in that it is generally not feasible for deep peel dark skinned people with significant pigmentation because it peels the skin unevenly, and thus leaves uneven pigmented skin. For that reason, only fair skinned people are peeled with trichloroacetic acid treatment. Blacks and other dark skin race groups are excluded.
The second peel process involves the use of either resorcinol or salcylic acid. The use of either of these chemicals is generally restricted to correcting superficial skin problems. They are further limited in that they often can cause skin irritation.
The third peel process, or chemical peel, also has numerous drawbacks. First, it involves the use of phenol. The latter is known to be toxic and is thought to be potentially carcinogenic. Thus, this method must be carried out in a hospital, or in a similar controlled setting. In addition, the method is very painful and often requires that the patient be given medication during its application. Further, while the procedure does peel the skin evenly, it nevertheless often leaves uneven pigmentation of varying skin shades, or total loss of color, and, moreover, does not lend itself to repeat application because of its severe nature.
In addition to the above-described three types of skin peels, there exist a myriad number of less useful materials and procedures. For example, short exposure to ultraviolet light, with UVA or UVB, is known to be beneficial for psoriasis, vitiligo and mycosis fungoides, and simultaneously causes tanning of the skin. None of these methods uses full spectrum sun lamps.
It should be apparent from the above description that there is a need for additional methods of treating chronic skin disorders, particularly a method that would be universally applicable to all races, that is easy to perform, and, if need be, can be repeated one or more times.